Hope you guys can help with this one...DH and I are in the process of "assembling" our remote music kit (a la rusty blades - thank you!). We now have everything except the mp3 player and that's coming as a birthday gift.

Something that came to mind re the music we eventually want to load onto said mp3: we definitely want to be able to have different versions of each piece of music we skate to: a slow version while we learn it, a "full-speed" version and (maybe, if our courage holds out) a slightly faster than full speed version (the idea being that if we can make the fast version look OK, then the proper speed will look better... )

Does anyone have any idea what software (preferably free as all spare money goes on ice and coaching!) could edit music to slow it down or speed it up without affecting the pitch too much? We use PCs, not Macs.

Thanks!

Maybe you can try something like Audacity, with the change tempo option.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

goldwave is free and you can slow down or speed up something without changing pitch but it sometimes effects the quality of the track.

With audacity, you can change the tempo, but it does change the pitch. But, you can fix the pitch by going to change pitch. I usually keep an original copy of my music open in itunes so I can compare.

Goldwave is not free. You can try it for free, but if you keep it, it cost $50 Canadian, approx $45 US.

Goldwave has two different algorithms that allows you to change the tempo without changing the pitch: similarity and FFT. I've had better luck with the similarity algorithm. Like sk8guy said, it does affect the quality of the track, so you have to experiment with different input values. I've had better results with speed up than slow down. Typically, if you are adjusting the tempo by 10% or less, results are good.

I've used Goldwave for years and I like it a lot. It does everything I want, but there is a pretty steep learning curve. It took me a while to get good at it! But I've never used any other music editing software so really don't know how it compares to others.

ETA the website link: http://www.goldwave.com/

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Denver Synchronicity

We use Cakewalk software to do all our music editing. It can do what you are trying to accomplish.

If you have a Mac you can get the ProTools software no problem. If you use a PC, then you have to do some searching for it... At my school there's a recording program and that is basically the only software that they use. It's really good. (Kinda on the expensive side... What's with me recomending all these expensive products? I should be a sales associate instead of a cashier!)

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Alexei is LOVE
"You'll have to kill me to make me stop skating" -Alexei Yagudin

FWIW, Voyetra's Audio Surgeon does NOT let you change the playback speed, tempo or pitch.

It's a good idea, btw. It would make initially learning a program a bit easier if if there were more time between elements. You can always speed up the music, and your skating, as you master the program.

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Yes....Audacity WILL Change Tempo (in the effects menu) without altering the pitch. And it's freeware.

It takes a little bit of fooling around with it to figure out where the bells & whistles are located, but it does a good job. Great job, considering the cost.

There is another option, Change Speed, which does alter the pitch as well as tempo.

Then there is Change Pitch, which does extacly that.

Jon

Thanks so much for your help everyone - we've now downloaded Audacity and are learning what it can do. (So far, it can everything we need for it - great! )

I love Goldwave for cutting music for my skaters...

Err, synchro - while it was naive of the authors not to disable their software completely when the trial period expired, that doesn't make using their commercial program for business purposes without paying for it any better. Would you have posted that you'd found an unlocked back door to your local supermarket and always went out that way rather than going through the checkouts? Software development is not free - it costs time and money, and if you're asked to pay to use it for more than a trial (especially since you appear to be using it professionally ) then that's exactly what you should do. Regardless of whether you've found a way to avoid doing it.

Yes, I'm uptight about this. I'm a software developer.